20 Facts about Guitars/Guitarists

1. Orville H. Gibson, founder of Gibson guitars, established himself as a manufacturer of musical instruments around 1894.
2. The best selling Gibson of all time is the SG standard.
3. Clarence Leo Fender’s original firm was sold to CBS in 1965 for $13 million, a huge figure in that day.
4. Clarence Leo Fender started out as an accountant, before building amplifiers and PA systems in his 20s.
5. The first mass-produced solid-body guitar was Fender’s Broadcaster, first made in 1948.
6. Paul Reed Smith started out in an ‘impossibly small workshop’ simply repairing guitars, before establishing himself as the number-three guitar company behind Fender and Gibson.
7. The first plastic guitar pick was produced in 1922. 
8. John Lennon used a Rickenbacker 325 semi-hollow-bodied electric guitar in the recording of the first British Beatles album.
9. Paul McCartney made the Hofner 500 bass so popular that its violin shape became known widely as a “Beatle Bass”.
10. After getting on the wrong side of the law, Jimi Hendrix was forced to serve in the army.  However, he was dismissed after being described as a sub par soldier.
11. Hendrix’s first gig left him fired between sets, after too much wild playing and showing off.
12. Jimi Hendrix was listed as the greatest guitarist of all time in Gibson’s top 50 list, followed by Jimmy Page and Keith Richards.
13. Hendrix was only 27 when he was found dead in his London flat in 1970, following a drug overdose.
14. Hearing the Elvis Presley song "Baby Let's Play House" is cited by Jimmy Page as being his inspiration to take up playing the guitar.
15. Dimebag Darrell’s real name was Darrell Lance Abbott.
16. According to the Guitar World Magazine, Abbott was barred from competing in guitar competitions as a teenager, because he gave the other contestants no chance to win.
17. Dimebag Darrell was a major endorser of Dean Guitars since the 1980s and early days of Pantera.
18. Dimebag Darrell was fatally shot on stage on the 8^th December 2004.
19. This tragic event was exactly 24 years after the death of John Lennon in New York, who was also fatally shot.
20. Eventually, according to friend and family interviews in Johnny Marr, who rose to fame in the 1980s as part of The Smiths, joined Wakefield formed indie band The Cribs in 2008.